Phil Sayers
Very well known Exeweb poster
There is nothing unusual about Ukraine toppling that communications mast in Russia and certainly no cause for panic. This will scarcely register at all on the Putin anger Richter scale - in contrast with obliterating most of a Crimean airbase last week which must be a solid eight out of ten for anger. Russia didn't do anything about that (amusingly they initially blamed a discarded cigarette!) and won't do anything about this save for possibly launching another wave of terrorist cruise missile strikes on residential areas of Kyiv. In fact even their ability to do that is being steadily diminished as they are running out of cruise missiles, having to now repurpose 1960s nuclear tipped anti-shipping missiles as land attack missiles with conventional warheads whose accuracy just about allows selecting "Kyiv" as the rough target area. Why don't they do more in response? Because, there isn't really much they can do - "If you don't stop, we'll invade!" has kind of lost its effectiveness as a threat....
Prior Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil have ranged from cross-border special forces raids blowing up railway bridges, to Tochka ballistic missile strikes on ammo dumps, to cross-border drone attacks including the assassination of FSB agents. Most dramatic of all was probably this helicopter attack on an oil refinery:
Given the Russians didn't / couldn't do anything about that massive slap in the face they won't can't do anything much about this either. Also, there is nothing much unusual about the West arming Ukraine to fight Russia. Soviet military advisers seconded to the North Vietnamese army actually manned SAM batteries and pressed the launch buttons that downed US aircraft. Spetnaz also sometimes fought on the ground including in a raid on a US airbase in South Vietnam that resulted in them destroying several US helicopters and carting another one off for close inspection in Moscow. That level of direct Soviet combat involvement (and vast supplies) in a war which killed tens of thousands of US troops did not cause any concern about WW3 breaking out and nor did the US remotely contemplate retaliating against the USSR for it.
Prior Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil have ranged from cross-border special forces raids blowing up railway bridges, to Tochka ballistic missile strikes on ammo dumps, to cross-border drone attacks including the assassination of FSB agents. Most dramatic of all was probably this helicopter attack on an oil refinery:
Given the Russians didn't / couldn't do anything about that massive slap in the face they won't can't do anything much about this either. Also, there is nothing much unusual about the West arming Ukraine to fight Russia. Soviet military advisers seconded to the North Vietnamese army actually manned SAM batteries and pressed the launch buttons that downed US aircraft. Spetnaz also sometimes fought on the ground including in a raid on a US airbase in South Vietnam that resulted in them destroying several US helicopters and carting another one off for close inspection in Moscow. That level of direct Soviet combat involvement (and vast supplies) in a war which killed tens of thousands of US troops did not cause any concern about WW3 breaking out and nor did the US remotely contemplate retaliating against the USSR for it.
